Adaptive and Integrated Water Management: Coping With Complexity and Uncertainty

Sustainable water management is a key environmental challenge of the 21st century. Developing and implementing innovative management approaches and how to cope with the increasing complexity and uncertainties was the theme of the first International Conference on Adaptive and Integrated Water Management, held in November 2007 in Basel, Switzerland. The conference volume includes selected contributions on conceptual and methodological innovations and empirical insights from case studies on important themes such as multi-level governance, change management, vulnerability assessment, environmental flows, uncertainty analysis and the impacts of climate change. The book addresses a wide interdisciplinary audience of scientists and professionals from academia, industry, and involved in policy making.

Claudia Pahl-Wostl, is Full professor of resource management at the Institute of Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrueck is an internationally leading expert on adaptive water management, water governance and participatory integrated assessment. Her research focuses on developing innovative concepts of managing transformation processes towards sustainability with an emphasis on an improved understanding of dynamics and management of actor networks and the implications of complexity and uncertainty. She is the coordinator of the EU project NEWATER (New methods for adaptive water management).

Pavel Kabat, is Full Professor and Chair Holder of the Earth System Science and Climate Change Group at Wageningen UR; Co-Chair of the International Scientific Steering Committee of IGBP/ILEAPS; Programme and Science Director of the International Cooperative Programme on Water and Climate (UNESCO/WMO/WWC); Science Director of the Dutch National Research Programme on Climate change and Spatial Planning. His scientific focus is on land – atmosphere interactions, climate hydrology and the water cycle, climate system and climate change.

Jörn Möltgen, is a Geographer at the Institute of Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrueck. His scientific focus is on usability engineering and knowledge processing for decision support systems in water management. He coordinated several national projects in transportation planning and water management and is manager of the integrated EU project NEWATER.